February 01, 2004
Carnival of the Capitalists
Welcome to this weeks Carnival of the Capitalists. Below are 28 posts on economics, business, marketing, and more.
Next weeks Carnival will be at the Trommetter Times. As usual send your submissions to capitalists -at- elhide.com. For more information go the Carnival web site. And if you want to be a future host contact Jay Solo at jaysolo -at- elhide.com.
Bush, Curves, Cuts and Deficits: Paul Smith, like myself, is unhappy with Bush’s spending and its impact on the deficit, and he has a nice discussion of the Laffer curve.
Too Many Taxes: From Dispatches from the Frozen North we get a run down of taxes that a business will have to pay. The problem isn’t that taxes are too high, but that there are so many different taxes.
Reforming Social Security: What is a carnival without a roller coaster? Boring. And the Carnival of the Capitalist has to have at least one post about reforming Social Security. (Well okay maybe not, but this will be a hot topic this year.)
China and Hong Kong: Simon over at SimonWorld gives us his views on the economy of both China and Hong Kong. Is there are stock market bubble in China? What about Hong Kong’s deficit? Check Simon’s post to find out.
Brazil’s Siren Song: Sorge Diaz at Forgotten Fronts, notes that Brazil’s economy is growing again and that the President, Luis Ignacio "Lula" da Silva, is out working hard on an “anti-American” alliance. So the question is, should people invest in Brazil given that da Silva is an avowed Marxist?
Europe vs. America in Prescription Drug R&D: Derek Lowe spots some comments by Dr. Rolf Krebs on what is wrong with the European pharmaceutical industry and concludes that the U.S. is where all the action is at right now.
Cost-of-Living Arbitrage: Arnold Kling has some information on the cost of living in India. The difference in the cost of living has an interesting implication, but the difference may not be all that real.
Marketing Help: John Lowell offers some advice on how to help make your software profitable.
Paranoia: Rob over at BusinessPundit has some advice to help one from becoming too “paranoid” when starting your own business.
Market Planning: Director Mitch uses the cellphone camera to introduce the steps he goes through to create a market plan.
Pixar and Disney Breaking-up: Barry Ritzholtz looks at the news that Pixar is going to be leaving Disney and what it means?
WorldCom’s Fortune Tellers: Joe Kristan picks up on an interesting item about WorldCom from their bankruptcy. It seems they paid their parent company for help with predicting the future. Well okay, they weren't calling the Psychic Friends Network, but it is pretty interesting and looks kind of fishy.
A business that could have been: Wayne’s sad business story with a simple moral at the end. Once I started reading I couldn't stop.
Will Super Bowl Ads Work: Given that time is such a precious commodity, how many people will be watching the ads?
Business Blog Book Tour: Todd at A Penny For is the first stop on the Business Blog Book Tour. You can find the first post here (which is on weblogs and business) here.
COOs' Outlook: Dragos points to a survey from Deloitte about some COOs' economic outlook. It deals with both national and international issues and has COOs around the world.
Weblogs and Business: Jim Berkowitz looks at whether blogs are good for business, the answer is yes.
Blogging for Money: Could large businesses start using blogs as an alternative to big media advertising? Craig thinks so.
Martha’s Cautionary Tale: Jeff Cornwall points out that when a company goes public the rules for managing the company change, and that is where Martha may have made her mistake.
The Immorality of Corporate Reparations: Professor Bainbridge has a very good post on why corporate reparations cases are actually immoral.
Theory of the firm: Jeff Horton at Synergy Fest has an interesting post on the Theory of the Firm and the Business Judgment Rule. What does that mean? Well the theory of the firm basically opens up one of economics “black boxes”, the firm and looks at how they work and how they create wealth. The business judgment rule is a central doctrine to corporate law. To find out more go read the post!
Patently Ridiculous: An interesting post at A Shareware Life about a specific example of the costs associated with the current intellectual property system and how it grants temporary monopolies.
Stocks and Statistics: A nice post over at SugarMama on why diversification is a good thing in the stock market.
Contrarian Tales: Karsten has an interesting post on investing and the consensus on what will happen in the markets, and wonders about using a strategy that goes contrary to the consensus.
Incentive Theory Anyone: Michael Williams explains one of the incentive problems with unemployment insurance. Namely, why look for a job if you can make more sitting at home watching television?
Fight Club Sucked: Rob Sama points us to a rant about the people who complain about how “…Ikea is leaching all the vigor and vitality out of the world….”
Two for the Price of One: Normally each contributor can submit only one entry, but this week James Joyner has two good ones and it would be a shame not to include both. So here they are the Price of Security and BBQ economics.
Beneficial Complexity: Robert Prather made a smallish post on beneficial complexity and it sparked an interesting discussion in the comments section.
Fighting the Fat Fighters: Mike has an interesting article on the venal lawyers who brought us the tobacco lawsuits and their next target is fast food.
Subtlety: What happens when government regulates an industry? David Masten explains. The regulations will tend to result in larger firms, these larger firms can now hire lobbyists who can lobby on things such as regulation. Go read the rest.
The Future of Money: Private Complimentary Currencies. These are things like frequent flyer miles, Disney Dollars, etc. There are some interesting implications for this, check out the post.
Posted by Steve at February 1, 2004 08:48 PM